There's a lot I don't understand about both docker and git, so my question and description of the problem may not be as detailed as some would like.
I've set up a container, Otter wiki, via the docker compose file offered in the docs. This sets up a persistent volume outside the container where the wiki config and git repo containing the wiki's pages live. Everything works fine. I can go to the site and everything works. But I want to add external files to the repo. When I try to do it, it throws an error saying I need to enter my email and user name. I do this, and it still says permission denied.
I assume the instance of git that's tracking the repo lives inside the docker container, but the repo itself lives outside the container. How do I add and commit files?
CLARIFYING EDIT:
The repo I'm trying to use isn't for Otter's source code. Otter uses git as the revision tracking system component common to most wikis. That is, the wiki itself is a git repo filled with markdown files. In order to add a bunch of existing markdown files to the wiki, I have to tell git to track them, but this is a persistent volume outside the container, so the instance of git I'm using is on the host, but the instance of git that's tracking the files is in the container.
The repo should just be some files, not actively "managed" from inside or outside the container. Interfering from outside might still cause some confusion.
I assume the volume is created in /var/lib/docker/volumes. What's the error once you configured username and email?
If you can't get it to work from outside, you can "log into" the running docker container with
docker exec -ti CONTAINERID /bin/sh.